Goldman Sachs Wealth Rainmaker Frank Ghali Resigns, Forms RIA

Frank S. Ghali, whose thriving practice managing the investments of Silicon Valley venture capitalists, entrepreneurs and foundations won him the coveted title of managing director at Goldman Sachs, resigned from the company on Friday with most of his 18-person team to start a “multi-family private office,” according to several people familiar with the events.

Ghali has spent his 17-year brokerage career at Goldman, and is believed to have been among the largest producers in the private wealth unit of its investment management division with production of more than $60 million and client assets of $12 billion.

Two people answering calls directed to Ghali and his team at their San Francisco office said they gave notice late last week and over the weekend.

Ghali, who on Saturday filed a placeholder application for a registered investment advisory firm under the name , did not respond to requests for comment. The registration document said Jordan Park, named for a small neighborhood in northern San Francisco, will work with clients who have a minimum of $50 million in assets.

The Ghali team, which includes at least two advisors who were trained as attorneys, is the second in two weeks to have caused a stir within Goldman’s ranks of fewer than 500 advisors by giving notice. A three-person group in Washington, DC, with about $2 billion of client assets gave notice earlier this month before Goldman succeeded in wooing one of them back.

A Goldman spokesman did not respond to requests for comment on Ghali and his team.

Ghali is contractually obligated to take a two-month leave before setting up his new business and cannot soliciting clients for three months, according to Roger Gershman, a partner at recruiting firm Consultants Period. Several of Ghali’s team members also are believed to be under some contractual restrictions.

A 1994 graduate of Rutgers University in New Jersey, Ghali ran an import-export business before registering as a broker with Goldman in October 2000, according to the websites of charitable organization on whose boards he serves and to his unblemished BrokerCheck record. He was a member of Goldman’s “Top Advisors” club, sat on its Private Wealth Management Advisory Council and was active in recruiting at Stanford Graduate School of Business and University of Pennsylvania for Goldman, according to his LinkedIn profile.

“Watching his success, it is clear how far hard work and being a good person will take you,” Graham Belchers, a former member of Ghali’s team said on a for Goldman’s private wealth management group that cited “my managing director” as his most influential mentor. “His ethos of ‘do good and good will come your way’ is the right one for a service-oriented business, and it influences every action I take.”

Belchers, who left Goldman in recent weeks, could not be reached for comment.

I was with Goldman in Miami back in the day and ran circles around this guy. Moved to Colorado with a private bank, inherited a book and leveraged that into management. Life is much better now that I’m the man. He’s got his work cut out for him starting from zero,